A little boy named Ian Unger, 6, couldn’t wait to ride the school bus as he got ready to start his school year in Sand Lake, Michigan. That’s why he was devastated when he was told that he could not ride the bus with his friends because he suffers from type 1 diabetes, which he was diagnosed with when he was 4.

Katrina Christensen, Ian’s mother, explained that the school refused to provide someone to ride the bus with Ian and monitor his blood sugar.

“[The district doesn’t] feel like it’s safe for him to ride the bus without [another adult] on it,” Katrina said. “So, they were gonna pick him up on an empty school bus at 8:45 a.m. — school starts at 8:30 a.m. He just wants to be like everybody else … to put him on an empty bus is unfair.”

Ian’s family decided to get him an alert dog that would alert him when his blood sugar was getting too low. However, this type of service dog costs $25,000, which they simply cannot afford. Undeterred by this, Ian decided to make the money himself in a very clever way.

“It was one of those things where, ‘Are we ever gonna have $25,000 to spend on a dog? Probably not.’ Ian wanted to start raising money, we talked about saving for it. We thought it would be three or four years before we raised the money,” Katrina explained. “He started wanting to do a lemonade stand, anything to raise the money. Then lemonade season was getting to be over, so we told Ian he could have the family’s pumpkin patch this year. He said, ‘I’m gonna sell pumpkins and I’m gonna get my dog!’’

Soon after Ian took over the pumpkin patch, someone posted about it on Facebook, and it quickly went viral. Before long, people from all over the place were flocking to his pumpkin patch!

“He’s quite the little salesman,” Katrina said of Ian. “We had hundreds of people in the driveway. He helped every single person pick out the right pumpkin. It was the coolest thing to see.”

A fundraiser was set up for Ian on Facebook, and it raised $24,890 in one week. Ian made an additional $1,000 selling pumpkins and $110 from selling lemonade.

Ian was ecstatic when he learned that he would indeed be getting the dog he wanted!

“He was super excited,” his mom said.  “He was just amazed that he was getting his dog.”

“Ian is an extremely happy kid and he always has been,” she continued. “He always helps people. With diabetes, he’s taken it quite well. I’m very proud of him. He could be mad about it, but he’s not. He’s like, ‘This is how it is. This is what I have to do.’ And he just does it.”

It’s clear that this family has quite the little entrepreneur on their hands! Find out more about his story in the video below!